President Bush Raises Hypocrisy to a Whole New Level

Let’s get this out of the way right at the top: All politicians are hypocrites. All of them. The ones who aren’t get weeded out at the dog catcher level and, unless they figure out how to play the game, need not bother to run for public office again. Sad but true, it’s the fatal flaw of democracy. Too many moral compromises, too many backroom deals, too many lies.

Having said that, the politicians who rise to the highest levels are the ones who understand how to play the game most convincingly. As the saying goes, once you’ve figured out how to fake sincerity you’ve got it made.

Obviously, some are better than others at looking you straight in the eye and telling you a big fat lie. I was hoping that in my lifetime Nixon would be the best (worst) we’d ever have to endure, but, as you may recall, he had a flaw that was a dead giveaway. If he had his lie planned out in advance, he was the master, but when he was forced to lie extemporaneously his upper lip would start sweating. Once he pulled out that hankie and started patting his lip, he was dead in the water.

Finally, in death, ol’ Tricky Dick met his match. No, it wasn’t Slick Willie, who didn’t inhale and didn’t have sexual relations with that woman (but who could have none the less been the best president in my lifetime). Clinton was so good that I knew he was lying and still liked him. Nope, the undisputed master of the big lie is none other than that fair-haired cowboy from Crawford, George ‘Duh’ Bush. I swear, the only way you can tell he’s lying is that his lips are moving.

The difference between Bush and most any other politico is that he doesn’t even try to disguise his hypocrisy. He just nonchalantly throws the big one out there and if you buy it, fine, and if not, well, you must be a heathen, baby-killing, anti-American pornographer so your opinion doesn’t count anyway. Scarier still, now that he’s convinced himself ‘— or Rove, Wolfie, Rummy, Pearl and Dick convinced him ‘— that he’s earned some political capital, he is intent on spending it to further his megalomaniacal agenda of turning America into a theocracy and reshaping the world into what America thinks it should be.

Where to begin, where to begin’….

How about a plan that allows big business to pump more mercury, nitrogen oxide, sulphur and other pollutants into the air and water supply, exempts power plants from being held accountable, and forbids states from suing polluters ‘— and calls it the ‘“Clear Skies’” initiative? How’s that for hypocrisy, eh?

Who else but The Duh could inherit the largest federal surplus in history, turn it into the largest deficit in history ‘— and call himself a fiscal conservative? I tell you, the man has a set of brass kahunas.

And while he was running up this mind-boggling deficit he was giving enormous tax cuts to the wealthiest among us, throwing a bone to the middle class and turning his back on the lower class ‘— and having the audacity to say he had a plan to balance the budget.

Lately his misguided cause has been social security. If this makes as little sense to you as it does to most Americans, merely take the advice of Deep Throat to Woodward and Bernstein: ‘“Follow the money.’” The only segment of the population that can possibly benefit from his privatization scheme is Wall Street, which donated multiple millions to his campaigns. Scratching the backs of stockbrokers and money managers is every bit as important as ‘“energizing his conservative base.’”

Speaking of which, the Terri Schiavo tragedy has provided Bush & Co. an opportunity to raise hypocrisy to a whole new level. First off, his operatives circulated a memo of talking points to Republican senators calling it ‘“a great political issue that resonates with Christian conservatives.’” Then he made the biggest grandstand play since landing on that aircraft carrier and declaring ‘“mission accomplished’” (which, by the way, was over a thousand U.S. deaths ago) by flying to Washington to sign the hastily crafted and ill-conceived bill that Congress passed in the wee hours of Monday morning. Never mind that White House aides admitted that the finished bill could just as easily have been flown to Texas for his signature, he still insisted that politics played no role in his decision.

While promoting the culture-of-life theme, perhaps he should mention that while governor of Texas he signed a bill allowing judges, of all people, to pull the plug on terminally ill patients and approved 152 executions, 12 of them despite the prosecutor’s recommendation for a life sentence.